2 months gone, no ID parade

OUR BUREAU

Dinabandhu Gayen

Barasat, May 29: The attackers of Habra II block development officer Dinabandhu Gayen are yet to be identified as police have failed to conduct an identification parade even after two months of the official lodging a complaint alleging that he was assaulted for enforcing the election model code.

Gayen was put on compulsory waiting by the government on Tuesday. He had lodged a police complaint on March 25 accusing a Trinamul MLA and his associates of assaulting him. Later, he filed another complaint that did not mention any MLA or assault and confined the allegations to threats and “hot talkings” by 25 ruling party supporters.

The Barasat district court postponed the identification parade twice on April 24 and May 19 after North 24-Parganas police failed to bring the required number of persons needed for the exercise. The court has instructed Gayen and the police to turn up again on June 26 with adequate number of people.

According to norms, 10 persons have to be lined up for each arrested accused during a parade. “Fifteen persons have been arrested in the case. Ideally, 150 inmates from various jails should have been brought and Gayen told to pick out the 15 accused from them. But we could produce only 25 people on each occasion,” said an officer of Ashoknagar police station.

He said the police did “not get enough time” to bring so many people because of the Lok Sabha polls.

Another identification parade scheduled for April 4 had to be cancelled because Gayen had said he was unwell.

In his first complaint on March 25, BDO Gayen had alleged that he had been assaulted by MLA Dhiman Roy and his associates for removing poll festoons and banners carrying the chief minister’s images from a PWD-maintained lamppost as it violated the model code.

Allegations had been made that the police did not take action on Gayen’s complaint, which had been forwarded to district magistrate Sanjay Bansal. A few days later, the Election Commission transferred Bansal and six other officials for alleged bias towards the ruling party and inaction on complaints lodged by the Opposition.

Bansal, who had been accused of going slow on the probe, has been reinstated in his previous post by the government.

“We will follow the norms laid down in the rulebook and initiate measures to complete the parade,” said Tanmay Ray Chaudhuri, the superintendent of police of North 24-Paraganas.